The Verwood Carnival will not be going ahead this year as organisers say they don’t have enough people to run it.

A final call for volunteers, posted on the event’s Facebook page in January, attracted four offers of help but this was not enough to help put the event on for another year.

The message, posted today, says: It is with great sadness we have to announce that 2024 Verwood Carnival has been cancelled due to lack of volunteers to organise and hold the event.

“We have until June 2024 to get enough volunteers to plan for 2025.

“We held an urgent meeting with a call for volunteers but only 4 people turned up!”

Shelley Rose from the Carnival told VerwoodToday there are just seven people on the organising committee so the cancellation is also about protecting them from being overloaded with work as well.

“If we had 50 or even 100 people from the town of 17,000 doing a little bit to help, it would make all the difference, Shelley said.

Asked if this year’s event could go ahead if a sudden influx of volunteers came forward, Shelley said: “It’s not possible at this stage due to the time involved. More people have been in touch this morning offering help and the plan is to regroup and make the event even better in 2025.”

The Carnival last ran in 2023 but was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 years due to COVID restrictions.